


You Won't Fall If They Push

by jat_sapphire



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Episode Related, Episode s04e03 Fugitive, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-23 23:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14343570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jat_sapphire/pseuds/jat_sapphire
Summary: After "Fugitive," Ray's still tense.





	You Won't Fall If They Push

Bodie wasn't paying too much attention to the chatter coming out of his own mouth, or even to the pain of his swollen cheek and split lip, but at least he was making a cheerful sound in the car, which otherwise would have been dead quiet. Cowley wasn't much for light conversation, and Doyle was clamming up as he always did after Bodie'd had a close shave. The trip from Fairoaks Airport to London was over an hour, too long for nothing but silence.

Doyle, in the rear seat, was brooding for England. He'd kept on the sunglasses he'd worn at the airport, and the hard expression as well. His face looked flatter than usual, somehow, locked up like a bank vault. Perhaps he knew when Bodie glanced back, because his fist closed against his thigh so hard that his knuckles were white and his forearm muscles bulged. Otherwise he might have been watching the countryside. 

Bodie kept looking back, because when he wasn't, he had the illusion he could hear Doyle shudder, as if his bones were clattering against each other, as if he were shaking apart. But Doyle did not speak and was still whenever Bodie’s gaze was on him.

“Lad, are you asleep?” asked Cowley, not loudly. “We're nearly to Frithville Gardens.”

In a voice as rough as if he'd not spoken for weeks, Ray said, “Going to Bodie's, innit?”

Cowley turned his head slightly toward Bodie, as if startled. “That so, Bodie?”

“OK.” Bodie shrugged. 

They took the next turn. A few minutes later, Cowley stopped in front of the flat-block. Bodie, conscious of his exhaustion and aching bruises as he had not been during the car trip, eyed the front steps and sighed.

Doyle jumped out of the back seat as if on springs, nipped round the end of the car and opened Bodie's door as if for a fancy bird, his face still stony but his grip on Bodie's arm snug and warm. “Ta, sir, see you tomorrow,” he said, sounding almost normal, but the light tremor in his hand wasn't normal at all.

“Thank you, sir,” said Bodie and got out of the car a little slowly: nothing to see here. His partner didn't let go. By the time the door was open and they were indoors, even in the corridor, the tremors were becoming shudders again and Ray's teeth were visible, clenched. They climbed to the first floor, more and more in rhythm. 

As soon as the door was open and he’d taken his first step inside, Bodie put his back to the wall. Instantly, Ray was on him: bony knees against the soft hollows of Bodie's, the edges of hip bones digging in, the bow of flying ribs riding Bodie's breath. The edges of Ray's frowning brows just showed over the sunglass frames. Bodie slipped them off to meet a hot, bright glare, and suggested, “Bed.” 

Ray took his arm again and tugged him across the sitting room, through the kitchenette, right to the side of the double-bed, where he slapped Bodie's hands away and stripped off the black jacket, pulled the white shirt over his head—“Ouch,” Bodie said as his arms were dragged up and his bruises rubbed against the cloth—his trousers opened and pants and all pulled down. The hand on his arm steadied him as he stepped out and toed off his shoes. Then he was, he felt, deposited on the bed and Doyle's clothes almost flew off: tweed jacket flung to the floor, wine-red shirt almost clawed off, belt unbuckled, boots off, trousers undone and down, those tight blue pants with the white band skinned right off, and he was on the bed, over Bodie, hands in the bedclothes and knees against Bodie's sides, staring. His hair bushed out, changing the look of his face almost the way the sunglasses had done.

Bodie liked a good fuck after danger as much as the next bloke, but he knew how Ray looked when beginning a simple shag, and he wasn't seeing it. Ray was still overtaken by shivers every few seconds, and his brows were still knit, eyes intent yet a little glazed, mouth slightly open for almost-panting breaths, and the pulse in his throat beating visibly and fast. 

Ray's fingers thrust into Bodie's hair, pushing against his scalp, and he expected a kiss but did not get one. Instead, Ray tucked his face into Bodie's neck for a long moment, then skimmed up over jaw to temple. Involuntarily, Bodie flinched—that side of his face was less bruised than the other, but he had been hit there. Ray pulled back to examine every inch of bruised and battered skin from chin to forehead. He pressed his cheek to Bodie’s collarbone, dragging across from the hollow of one shoulder to the other and back. The hair of his chest prickled. The muscles of his calves pressed in. Bodie felt the corner of the tooth next to Ray's chipped one, the lump of his cheek implant, the very ends of his lashes. He heard the hot, quick panting as he felt it on his skin. 

Neither of them was hard.

Hugging Ray to him, Bodie stroked the rigid muscles of his back until they felt more like flesh, less like stone. Ray's breathing eased. He raised his head, and Bodie saw much more commonplace irritation in his eyes and the set of his mouth.

“Christ,” he said, “don't you ever run away from me again, you big dumb crud.”

“You make it sound like I was writing a note and packing up my little rucksa—” Belatedly, Bodie heard what he was saying and cut it off, not short enough.

“Your little rucksack,” Ray almost growled, “was packed enough, yeah.” He closed his eyes, and this shudder ran through both of them. They both saw the same deadly flash and roar and heard the same patter of falling meat.

“You saved me,” said Bodie.

“'S how this works. You save me. I save you. If you give me the chance.”

“All my chances,” Bodie said, and took his kiss at last. 

They were both good at kissing and both loved it, even with birds who meant nothing, or nothing more than a night. Bodie went into those kisses swift and deep, then drew back to let her come to him, pretending to cede control. Doyle began gently with a woman, often humming his pleasure into her mouth, gradually tipping her back on a couch or bed.

With each other there was no pretence. Ray met the deepest tonguing strength for strength; Bodie sipped and moaned and played with Ray’s mouth. Now their lips clung and parted and met again, not teasing but touching their life and passion with each moment’s miraculous breath. 

But Ray wasn’t done talking yet. “Pretty words,” he scoffed. “I didn’t have _any_ chance out there but what I took myself. What the hell were you doing, you maniac?”

Bodie thought he had an unassailable answer: “Getting the bomb away from Cowley.”

Ray slapped the side of his head, well away from the bruising. “Liar.” But he was smiling. Then with a long inhalation, he rolled onto his side, so they still touched all along their bodies. “Don’t you know,” he scolded, “if we go, we go together?”

“Rather not go.”

“No, that’s right.” Ray put his hand on Bodie’s chest, above his heart. His fingertips made tiny circles, as if encouraging it to beat.

That heart was wrung, but Bodie only said, “Are we having it on or just talking, sunshine?”

“Want to fuck you through the mattress, in my head. But look at me.” Ray gestured at his cock, lying quiescent among auburn curls.

“Yeah,” Bodie conceded, since it was obvious anyway, “me as well.” Then he yawned, so widely that all the bruises stung at once, and a little yip of surprise and pain slipped out. 

Ray sat up. “Or I could plaster you with arnica and roll you in brown paper, and you could get your beauty sleep.” 

“Don’t need beauty sleep, do I?”

Leaning in, Ray said just above Bodie’s lips, “You do, I’m afraid,” and then kissed him, slow and sweet. “And since you’re always so rude about how much of the bed I use, I’ll leave you to it.” With a kind of bounce, he stepped over Bodie and landed on the floor beside the bed. “Tuck you up?”

Bodie took the strong wrist in his hand, looked up, and was caught. The window curtains had a gap, so the late sun slanted in, laying a shaft of gold on Ray’s wild hair, his cheek, his shoulder, across his arm, his hip, the tip of his cock. All that coiled tension, the uncontrolled movement, the unsteady mouth and rough voice, were gone. He was, at that moment, peaceful and beautiful, and the thought that he might be taken from the world for any reason was so unbearable that Bodie’s grip tightened convulsively.

“Oi, don’t break it,” Ray said easily.

So many answers, so many declarations, swirled through Bodie’s head that he couldn’t choose one. “Can’t,” he got out at last. “You’re not breakable.”

“Nor are you.” They gazed at each other a while, and then Doyle picked up his clothes and put them on. “I’ll take the car, shall I, and pick you up tomorrow? Keys still the same place?”

And he was gone in a moment, but there anyway, the centre, the only one who could push enough to move the two of them. Bodie pulled bedding over himself and fell without fear into sleep.


End file.
